no Tutorials... but lecture at 5

finally! submmited my advance services first assignment. phew. it wasnt so stressful, easy peasy nice and easy.anyway, we're having a site visit next week. woohoo! hope it isnt those wear boots and helmet sort of site visit. if im not wrong, it should be some funky building out from the city.
anyway, theres still a presentation coming up this thursday and i've yet to work out my thumbnail sketches and sections. with technology by my side, half of the work is done. SKETCHUP!!

other highlights during the past few days. dinner on saturday at auntie kiat and uncle mickey's place. it was fun! the food was in an abundance. and i did not require to lift a finger to help out. the aunties are so efficient. hehe. and one of them even made meat roles (the one mom makes in bulks), still i prefer it steamed.
the morning was Captain's ball... the aim of the game is to meet at North Court (uni) and walk all the way back to Vic Market for (big) breakfast. yum.
then on sunday was another dinner gathering. this time the ltc food i/cs for the retreat had a tryout session on the meals. yumyum. it was delicious and the service was... hospitable. and the crowd was... whacky. one of them has an ambition to become the Prime Minister of M'sia and then proceed to become the King of the world. speaking of which, Merdeka day is tomorrow. ahem...

Negaraku
Tanah tumpahnya darahku,
Rakyat hidup
bersatu dan maju,

Rahmat bahagia
Tuhan kurniakan,
Raja kita
selamat bertakhta,

Rahmat bahagia
Tuhan kurniakan.
politik kita
semoga tak korupt.

is Negaraku from a Hawaiian melody??

Site Reference

aku belum pasti nak pergi meraikan hari merdeka bersama diorang. ada assignment nak siap. lecehnya.bah! perut saya sakit! semalam pergi jogging sampai kaki saya penat, lagi buat sit-ups and crunches... bikin mati saje. gerak sikit put nak mati sekarang. tapi sekarang dah boleh rasa effeknya, semakin fit. haha. hmmm saya berestimat dalam tempoh 2 bulan boleh hilangkan perut besar saya ni. harap... harap.

medical students should read this... hehe. wonder if the word "platoon" would trigger Legionnaires disease...

Site Reference

green green grass by the river...

i have to confess. i committed a sin. i stole a copy of the Architecture Australia magazine. a whole stack was just lying around the old faculty office just begging to be taken. and since it was unattended and untied, i would assumed that it was FOC. and i would agree that it was a definite green light for me, coz the magazine was green in color (duh!).
i mean, its just like the tennis balls paul and i collected at melbourne park. it was green. and green stands for GO in many countries. its an international sign of approval. plus, you wont say "the grass is always GREENer on the other side" for nothing. and w2 isnt a ganGREEN for no reason. anyhow, whats been done, has already been done. no turning back. hey its not like you would see AA magazines lying around everyday. it was the awards edition, then again there wasnt much of interest in the contents anyway. aiya, it was definitely free for everyone. just a matter of guts. like how w2 is so thick face of himself.

mentoring. i honestly would agree that the body needs it. everyone needs to be loved and taken care of. and having a gangrene in the body just worries me. i really dont give a damn about this particular body. but i really do get worried for the little ones in it. just cant bare to see them get poluted/ mislead by the standards/ ideals of the gangrene (everytime i think of gangrene, i would think of the grinch. don't know why). well being in ltc really opened my eyes to see/ meet the others. seeing them, so naive and willing to receive anything/ everything that comes their way. sooner or later their gonna be knocked down by a train, and not know what hit them till they become paralyzed. everything the gangrene's been doing just seem to be like an oil spill. and to think some people apraise his hypocracy. who gives a damn about the gangrene's legacy anyway? then again, some people think he's right to leave his legacy... in that manner. stupid idiots.

mentoring. i can still recall my beingmentoreddays. ofcoz my ultimate mentors were my parents. the cain was my bible in everyway. but as well i had 2 other mentors from my ol' church at GT (which currently i truly despise. kidding). one mentor was my spiritual mentor, and the other was my lifestyle demeanor mentor.
i still remember the first meet up i had with my spiritual mentor. he took me to eat ICE-CREAM (earthquake!). whoa! we had 16 different flavours (i was keen on the 26 flavours one, but was abit paiseh to request). nevertheless heaven indeed. from there we discuss on whether i was interested to be his timothy and him being my paul. it was then we started the paul-timothy discipleship. my code name was timothy, and he as paul. and my first session was about how paul encourage timothy not to despise his youth in 1 timothy 4:12. the beauty of all our meets was that there was food involve. hehe.
on and off he would remind me about my timothy promise to him when i got abit neglectful on my actions. i respected him, coz he's lame. my sensei. okay, i think sometimes i am abit selective on the advice taken, i.e being in a relationship only when im 30, was a relative input, heh.
we never actually manage to finish our bs. i remebered him dumping a huge stack of bible study material for me to do. it was a whole series of paul-timothy study. hehe, until now, i've yet to finish it.
but i guess he could only cater to my spiritual needs hence the other mentor came in. the ever so fit and spunky sepet Ik Meow. all he bothers to do is to ensure my physical fitness level, mamak diets, a leader's demeanor, and BGR issues (not like i had any. hehe). i think i fared better than him with the girls... muahahahaha. coz i was young and cute!! sigh...
the story goes on and on. and i do miss them at times. Godly people indeed. worship lifestyle. confident. wise. strong in the word. passionate. loving. etc. everything i'm not or struggles to be. then again, atleast im cool.

EVERYTHING... is Arbituary

half an hour before prayer meet. and this poor little boy is feelin' cold and hungry. today was design studio, i have to say that i really absolutely admire my tutor. he just has an answer for everything, and makes architecture sound so remarkable. oh so picturesque! he's a walking history book, which is more than happy to open himself up, might even flip the pages for you. i guess being that old, you'd have to start spreading your legacy around. like a dog peeing on every tree he sees (okay that wasnt a good analogy of it). or like how w2 is spreading like gangrene.

anyway. i'll continue this later.

"For every Philip Johnson or Frank Lloyd Wright in a generation of architects, there are countless more who work without fanfare on the everyday buildings where we work, live and shop.

Architects may spend up to seven years completing undergraduate and master's-degree studies, or up to three-and-a-half years in a master's program if they majored in another area during college. To be eligible to take the licensing exam, they also must log three years as interns working for licensed architects.

Architects with a master's might enter the work force with between $50,000 and $80,000 in student loan debt. But as first-year interns, they might earn only $34,000, the national median according to the 2005 compensation survey by the American Institute of Architects. Meanwhile, several steps up the ladder, senior architects earn a median of $68,900.

Ref: http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/15/pf/...g_pay/index.htm

relationships... is tough.

we had a facilitator steam boat gathering today (sunday). it was pretty fun, everyone made it and was able to buzz my newly installed intercom. woohoo!
well the good thing for the occasion, was my compulsory act to clean up the place before their arrival. during the steam boat, half my mind was totally worried on them messing up the place. kept my eyes everywhere, keeping close on all their fingers ensuring they dont wipe it anywhere besides the serviettes. never knew i could be paranoid about these sort of things. haha! atleast now my house is spotless... which probably only would be able to stay in that state for a day.

interesting, my housemate was telling me that it isnt good to refrost meat that had been defrosted. so once you've defrosted the meat, then it should be cooked. hmmm... mayb that would explain my occasional stomach aches.
i was asked to consider taking/ heading the mentoring program. err... ummm... ugghh. i dont know. all i know that its all haywire. there isnt a system to it. all they do is flaunt out names here and there on paper... assuming this / that. figuring out how to distinguish the high profile and not so high profile candidates. everyone has their own personal assumptions on everything and everyone. pushing him / her. wt*?!
well, when i see this whole thing being organize. i really dont wanna be a part of it. it probably boils down to the head of the ministry, putting his / her foot down. as what my tutor would say... "make a decision! make a decision!"
i dont know. i'm interested, yet at the same time not. maybe if w2 wasnt so itchy finger, then things wont be so complicated / *up.

anyway! the participants wants to play captain ball during the weekend, and i've got a whistle!! plus free dinner at auntie kiat's place!! prior to our VBS involvement. hahah... so rewarding indeed!!

mother's birthday...

during our design lecture series, we learn the difference between urban Planners and urban Designers. the difference is Planners communnicate with TEXT whereas Designers uses GRAPHICS. okay that made sense. she then went on about while she was transitioning from being an Architect into urbanism, she struggled on the TEXT part. and she said how we as architects are terrible in our text, our lack of constructive text sometimes creates this barrier between us and the non-graphic literate people. pretty graphics doesnt really say much to people like them. and with no good TEXT to back it up, we're no different from the beautiful-dumb-blonds. ugh! bad analogy? think Britney Spears... lucky.
and yes i do struggle in communicating my ideas/thoughts in TEXT format... sometimes. i use the word sheepS in a plural manner. and i know no shit between verbs and adverbs. okay this is bad. however but in some strange way, i still manage to get through my theory & history classes that required only written TEXTs. then again, it isnt that hard to anyway. all i have is just bad grammar. thats all. and nothing more. i hope. *gulp*
well atleast i know how to spell ARCHITECTURE. and that is all that matters for an architect. the true shame of an architect is when he can't spell the word- ARCHITECTURE (woohoo, i got it right. twice!). this was actually the first thing we had to do during our first year. to spell the word correctly. how sad is that? and that sort of might determine your future in this profession. do or die. then again, with modern tech. i.e. microsoft word, anything is avertable.

sadly today we had no slide show. but i was enlightened on the history of the radio. our tutor thinks we're amazed by how capable the radio was. but really i was more intrigued on how long he's been around for.

HOUSE

i love the show. its so far the best medical show i've seen. i personally hate hospitals, im afraid of needles, the clinic/ hospital smell gives me the creeps, and doctors aren't to be trusted.
but somehow i still enjoy watching HOUSE. i've decided to limit myself to one show during the weekdays ( weekends depending whether there's a good movie on). and the choices i had from were Cold Case (hot chic), Law & Order: SVU (interesting cases), CSI (somehow you'll get glued to it), and Numbers (i love cop shows with a twist). in the end i picked HOUSE, due to the fact that its on a wednesday (my midweek break day), my GF is a med student (i can so relate to), Dr House is cool, and i love the whole guessing/suspense thrill of it.
i think Dr House is cool, and i love his obsessive behaviour towards his profession. hoping one day i would be as obsessive and compulsive towards my field in Architecture. not really i way of trying to give the client the best, but just to satisfy my complacent ideals of how things should be. And in some strange manner, i'm enthused to break my limb just so i can walk with a cane. then again, i take that back... taking pain killers for the rest of my life aint really the sort of routine i would like to live in.
okay, back to reading my article on 'Transcendental capitalism & the roots of paranoid nationalism'.
oh! and i cant wait for tomorrow... we're having a slide show in the studio. i love slide shows. being able to guess if i remember/ know the buildings makes me feel gifted.
oh, and heres a trivia for you architects...
who designed the Rialto Building a.k.a the tallest building in Melbourne?
someone told me that it was I.M Pei, but apparently it isnt his work.

SMAP... idea

week 4. a wednesday morning where i dont have classes for the whole day. made myself a sandwich and coke, i reckon the caffeine in it would keep me moving. and ofcourse as usual blasting the SMAP cd... hehe. 'BLUES MASTERS KILL...'
anyway, highlight of the day would be going back to the studio to finish up on the site model. so what have i learn in studio for this week... hmmm, how to mix the rubber cement and solvent together to form glue!! mamamia! well the outcome is you get a sort of glue that has a UHU glue texture but a mounting spray's sticking quality but only stickier. and the fume smells wonderful!! woohoo... i get a tingly highness everytime i run the bottle by my nose. well... thats probably how architects be able to come out inspiring designs, just like rock musicians with their heroin.
other highlights for the week... tomorrow's studio class, wonder what other interesting stories would our tutor share with us... well there is this one story he told us regarding one of his projects.

It was when they were working on the Peralta college at Oakland around the 1960-70s. the team was coming out with various schemes etc, and one day this british fella just showed up in the office and asked for a part time job at the firm. he was having his summer break then and decided to visit the states. and so since he was already there and the extra hand would always be useful they hired him just for the Peralta project. so for weeks they work on the project, the brit boy did skecthes blabla, and everyone was having fun at the same time getting to know the fella. until after a few weeks, the brit boy say he had to leave to continue his tour around the south region. and so he did, but by that time the project scheme was almost done.
weeks after the brit boy had left for mexico. suddenly, he turns up at the office. he had finish his tour around the states and was returning home. but decided that he had to come back to the office, because something had been bothering him and it wont be nice to leave without telling the design team. he told the design team that he was actually a second year optometrics student in london...

okay, this story was probably very boring to all of you. but to me i thought it was pretty interesting when he told us about it.
anyhow! friday's highlight... we will be discussing about australian aborigins during our postcolonial class, and bible study with ltc participant at 3pm and 5pm with jon. okay okay... i better scoot off to uni now.

Buzzer beater...

had korean bbq for dinner at JM's crib and it was marvelous. it's always convenient when you have non-stick. well, next weekend its steamboat at my place. reason for having it at my place... cause they've installed a new intercom buzzer!! i have been living without one for about half a year, and its great having a buzzer coz you can let your guest in without the hassle of running all the way to the front door for them. hehe, so by having it at my place, all the LTC facilitators can use the buzzer... ooohhh! im so excited!!

the committee extracted a new member from my cell which they had actually just assign her to me last friday. what the...!? well it could be that she wanted the transfer. i mean my cell aint that hospitable anyway. the girls in my cell are just not friendly at all... actually no one is, i suspect its probably because she was msian. and i thought cell was finally going somewhere.
another thing to worry about is my other male cell member.... might have doubts of OCF... maybe... i dont know. i wont blame him anyway. who doesnt.

last saturday at LTC, we had a guest panel of senior OCFers talking about yours truly... OCF. cept... what the heck was Wang Wei doing up there?! anyhow, it was interesting that some of them had their doubts in staying, yet still did. all because of my driving force that somehow compels them to stay. im still deciding whether or not i should as well. i was keen on leaving, but because of the power of ONE... i decided to postponed. however now, if that one leaves... then should i? where would i go? ahah! interesting question... where?! mayb i should start my own SCF.
well, im currently helping out in LTC (JM's ministry). its a course where we try to turn these little imps into (potential) leaders. exciting place. this might give me wider perspective on things at OCF maybe. atleast my partner is keen and dedicated, that for one is encouraging for starters. now we'll have to see how these little brats will do.

chatted with an old college CF friend- Noah. he wasnt really a good friend of mine. but he hung around with me coz he was interested in Jenny Choo. haha, i can still remember those times everytime Jenny tried to avoid him, it was slightly creepy. worse still, he had a twin brother who was as well vaguely interested in her... haha. funny stuff. anyhow, he's into TV production now, asked him to recommend me when does get to produce any movie. wont mind trying my luck in the entertainment industry. hmmm... *slurp*

Heterotopian culture...

And you thought Frank Gehry was the only one who could do weird tectonics. btw, Gehry is apparently going to collaborate with Brad Pitt to design a 1930's sports center... what the..?! wonder who the engineers are going to collaborate with... Britney Spears?!( hit me baby one more time indeed.)

Apparently, Gehry's Ground Zero's Memorial was scraped. and so calatrava inserts his many collection of monsterous anatomy structures.

Something i might had done for my Rompin Project. hmmm.

friday. the last day of the week/ classes, and my postcolonial studies day from 10 to 2pm. im blasting JM's Smap CD (if u don't mind)... i have no idea why im so seduced by their sparky music, adding to the fact that don't understand a single word they are saying. they rarely use words like Arigat-to... Sayona-ra... Koni-chi-wa... sumi-maste... et cetera. so hard to relate to them in a lingual sense, sigh.

im supposed to tell the class a theoretical problem i'm interested in exploring for my essay topic for postcolonial studies. i have no idea. but context wise... M'sia probably.
well i better get cracking.

FFT: Australian Architecture = Kiasu Architecture

week 3...

studio is going to be interesting, i hope. we'll begin model making, erecting up the 1:500 site model in the studio. and our lovely studio leader will teach us how to make quick models... apparently its possible to built up a model in 15 seconds, however, i wont be surprise if it was a box. doing work in the studio classes is good, and if everyone is force to do it together right there right that instant. things feel like its being done, finally we're going somewhere in our process.
later in the evening, sector steamboat. exclusive meeting with the other cell leaders within the sector.
currently reading "the cyber cities of Malaysia: Realising the Vision" by Azman bin Haji Awang. and i think ICT is stupid and rediculous, especially when it'll probably affect the architectural aesthetic industry. if no one is going to move out of their comfort houses... might as well we just built a front facade pasted on our sterile white box buildings. heck, nobody's gonna use it anyway. portal frame factories would re-replace the deserted shopping malls. my personal oppinion, Putrajaya sucks... the planning system is so yesterday. and to think that it was designed by a chinese.
malaysian architectural concepts:
KLIA- airport in the forest
KLCC- tower next to garden
Putrajaya- City in the garden (garden city)
ken yeang buildings- green skyscrapers/ groundscrapers (bushy buildings)
etc...

my point? no idea...

things you do on wednesdays...

01. wake up
02. shower... etc
03. pass control to carparker
04. get a hair cut
05. find HY to burn photoshop CS
06. site visit (building heights)
07. prayer meet (1-2pm)
08. errands (after hours carpark, bookshop, bills)
09. Library (read up for multicultural/ postcolonial studies, and check out journal-Place)
10. Tennis with Jun
11. Shower
12. prepare/ cook dinner
13. finish up on Bauhaus building analysis
14. gather/ compile information for thursday's studio
15. read "other" resources (tentatively)
16. sleep

ah! which reminds me, i have not confirm my air flight back. and i've got City library books/ cds to return.

full house...

its the second week of the semester. having girls in a design group is very useful, very hardworking and always in a paranoia state of mind. they will do all the administrative and calculation work. working out everything in great detail. me being the guy... will ofcourse do the "manly" task... which is... moral support.
anyway i'll continue to read up my reader.

photo: guess whos a medical or architectural student. (background: parliament building)